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Monday, July 17, 2017

Famous Naval Movie Remakes

Remakes of famous movies are
a staple of Hollywood moviemaking entertainment. I’ve just learned that a series of famous
naval movies are scheduled for remakes with a modern take on them. Here’s a list of the movies along with a
brief synopsis of the plots.

In Harm’s Way – The inspiring story of courage against all odds. Fighting off green energy task forces, a
courageous Captain risks all to continue using incandescent light bulbs on his
ship even in the face of overwhelming bureaucratic odds.

Run Silent, Run Deep – Rig for silent running as the creators of the LCS
slip silently away, ducking responsibility depth charges and gaining promotions
in the process!

They Were Expendable – The true story of the Spruance class destroyers
that were sunk by the US Navy in a desperate attempt to stave off criticisms of
the new Aegis system and eliminate any possible alternative.

Mister Roberts – A plucky lieutenant tries to look out for his crew while waging
a tireless campaign to get the ship’s Captain to approve his transfer to a
naval hospital for a gender change operation.

Crimson Tide
– Suspense abounds as a submarine Captain and his Executive Officer clash over
the wording of the PowerPoint slides they’ll use to summarize the sub’s
patrol. Mutiny ensues and the crew must
choose sides: the Captain wants Arial
font and the XO wants Times New Roman.

The Enemy Below – An American destroyer Captain engages in a battle of wits with an
Iranian submarine commander. Watch as
the American destroyer fires off volley after volley of strongly worded
protests until the Iranian simply orders the American destroyer to stand down
and be boarded, at which point the heroic American crew comply and are
eventually released to return home to a hero’s welcome and medals for all the
female crew members for just being there.

The Caine Mutiny – A ship Captain is relieved for
“loss of confidence in his ability to command” after an anonymous complaint
from a crew member to the Navy’s 1-800-SQUEAL phone line accuses the Captain of
miscounting the ship’s strawberry inventory.
The subsequent court martial reveals that, indeed, one can of
strawberries was short a berry and Navy leadership congratulates itself on
weeding out yet another unfit Captain.

Top Gun –
A maverick pilot breaks all the rules as he battles the Navy and a caricature
enemy before passing out in his F-18 due to oxygen deprivation in the climactic
scene.

The Final Countdown – A freak storm sends a Navy carrier back to WWII where they learn that
warships used to have armor and heavy weapons.
Stunned, they return to their own time and vow never to speak of what
they have learned.

G.I. Jane
– In an absurd bit of movie making, a woman breezes through SEAL training. Oh wait, that’s not a ridiculous remake –
that was the original movie!

An Officer and a Gentleman – A young man attends OfficerCandidateSchool where he learns what it really means to be a Navy
officer. Watch as he learns to smile and
salute while extolling the virtues of a non-functional weapons program, thwarts
Congressional cost caps, masters the art of micromanagement, rises through the
ranks by taking no chances, and ultimately retires to a well earned position on
the board of a major defense industry company.

Operation Petticoat – This lighthearted WWII movie sees a pink submarine with an all female
crew rescue a party of helpless men from the Japanese advance. The ensuing hijinks show why men don’t belong
in a modern Navy!

The CruelSea – A taut psychological thriller of life at sea. Witness the cruelty of life at sea as the
ship crosses the equator and the Pollywogs in the crew are forced to endure
unimaginable hazing cruelties when the Shellbacks in the crew make funny faces
at them. Warning! Some scenes may be too graphic for younger viewers
as Pollywogs are politely requested to eat Jello blindfolded while being told
that it is dragon’s blood.

Down Periscope – A misfit Captain and his crew take a submarine into a wargame, sink
all the blue ships, and the results are ignored. Oh wait, that was Millenium Challenge 2002,
not a movie.

How about it? Seen any good movie remakes lately that
didn’t make the list?

37 comments:

Out of that list, I'd have to go with either "The Final Countdown" or "An Officer and a Gentleman" because they so well describe the current state of the navy. With a special mention for "Down Periscope" because I saw it in the theater a week before shipping off for the navy, or "Top Gun" which came out when I was an impressionable 9 year old and years later I ended up on the same ship on which much of it was filmed. What would a remake of "Under Siege" look like?

But before manning (I mean crewing) the Battleship to go fight the alien invaders (I mean misunderstood inter-planetary visitors) there would have to be a training stand down. The old salts need to be trained in important modern naval warfare doctrine such as gender equality and LGBTQ acceptance. Also the ship would have to be converted to a renewable environmentally energy source because climate change is the greatest threat to national security.

No. I imagine the bulk of it is either classified or not for public consumption. There was a lengthy writeup that appeared on the Internet. I don't have a link handy, but you should be able to find it with a bit of searching.

Flight of the Intruder - the story of a bold F-18 F Growler crew that decide to go on a solo mission against a enemy SAM site because the F-35C who tried to destroy it the previous day have been detected and were lacking long range weapons to engage the radars. However, the F-18 Growler is also shot down due to the use of older ALQ-99 jammers, luckily for them they manage to eject but since they're rescue party of V-22's was not so lucky they had to walk trough countless miles of desert and hiding when finally they reach the border of a friendly country

Master and Commander- A naval acquisition commander and his "particular mate", a Naval psychiatrist, face rugged adventure and adversity manufacturing requirements and new directives for ship building and personnel, so outrageous, that even the PC crowd do not approve within the Navy!

Good one. "particular mate"? Sounds like when you were on the carrier you must have spent some time around enlisted nukes; our humor rubbed off on you.

On a serious note, b2, I am curious if when you were a young pilot, did you do any training flight ops on the Lexington when it was the training carrier? If so were there any issues flying off and on the smaller deck? I'd like to hear your input.

"Particular" mate comes from the 18 book Master and Commander series I highly recommend, written by Patrick O'Brien. In the early 1800th century the world "particular" was often used to describe friends and others... In those books the traditions and historic fundamentals about UK/US Navies that all US sailors past/present should read to understand their heritage. You'll thank me.

Yep- T-2B Buckeye on Lex, A-4J Scooter on Sara. Lexington had a wooden flight deck and was based in PNCLA.... A-7's CQ'd on it when I was CQing (carrier qualing). Small hangar decks.

MM- Lex or Midway class are not good models for any of your small carrier ideas you discuss here at CNOPS blog! CQ on LEX was just CQ MM... Like shooting targets, not hunting.

Real carrier operations I participated in 70's-90's are quite different from a CQ deck run for students or those refreshing pilots...CQ only happens under Case 1 conditions and the cycle is much different (more benign). Check CV Natops for the details... CQ aviation experiences no pitching decks, no rain squalls, no 40" seas, no MOVLAS/degraded recovery... From my observations CVN-CVW flight ops of today or even 20 years ago are not as robust as those earlier days sortie/mission-wise for many reasons and in spite of, or regardless of, the fact that todays folks are dropping bombs (IE- green ink combat) vs. ISIS or any rifle toting terrorist. After 16 years we are proficient at that..

BTW, those "America class" MEU ships that carry Harriers and in the future F-35Bs also only fly under optimum conditions, almost like CQ discussed above. Remember they fly single-engine attack, limited range, not all weather capable jets that are not suited for War at Sea, blue water despite their claims. They operate their aircraft similar to the way the CHICOMS or the RUSSIANS operate their carriers aircraft. I ask, why would we want to trade real capability built up since the most important American Naval battle ever, Midway, and the CVN-CVW of today to downsize and become another second rate naval aviation player in the world?

However, for all those battleship game players who want a square peg in a round hole from a vendors .ppt they saw, or from a marine aviators mouth, practicality and capability doesn't matter much!

Thanks for your insight and sharing your experience. I think we agree that big deck CVN's are an important asset with exceptional capabilities (I did all my sea time on one). The political risk in my idea, and may be why you oppose it, is some members of congress would see "a carrier is a carrier is a carrier" and then go down the path of reducing first tier assets. The path we have currently been on is wearing down our first rate assets on second and third rate missions. My vision is Nimitz type carriers with air wings composed like the ones you remember, and Essex type CVA's as a lower tier asset to handle the smaller jobs and augment the CVN's during big operations. All part of the high/low mix concept. I don't think the America class with F-35's is the answer. One of my uncles was an avionics tech on the Ticonderoga during Vietnam; I also need to get his input on in theater operations.

Thanks,Whenever you need wind across the deck and steam for your cats, I'm there for you.

You do mean to reengineer/rebuild a similar sixed Essex sized carrier?

My problem is this concept MM ain't about politics or the USAF/Surface Navy dudes constantly coming up with a Navy plan for ships that don't include carriers for a lot of supposed reasons- vulnerability-cost-capability and just plain envy/change for change sake... This argument comes up every year since I can remember. And every year it has to be shut down.

No the overarching reason why I am against any new carrier or talk of an F-35B carrier as anything but what it is, is because I do not have confidence that our military industrial complex does not have the technical/organizational/managerial ability to design a new carrier as you propose let alone redesign or re-engineer one. That also goes for new surface ships, new aircraft, capable drones or even oxygen/ALSS systems. Knowing that and if/when that environment improves I am against anything frivolous that just rewards the group that runs from pone shiny to another screwing things up from initial concepts/requirements through prototyping and testing. Failure after failure the past 25 years has prevailed. My mantra is this.

KISS- If a new design build is not better/equal to the basic performance of what it supposedly is replacing, don't build it. Given LCS, Ford and F-35 examples over the past 20 years, can you blame me?

b2, this conversation has stretched over a couple of posts and you still haven't suggested an alternative. We are pricing ourselves out of the supercarrier business. Set aside all the arguments about effectiveness and combat capability and the reality remains that we are on a steady path of shrinking carrier numbers. We can ride it right down to nothing or investigate alternatives.

I've proposed a smaller carrier as a SUPPLEMENT to, not a replacement for, full size carriers.

The other problem with carrier costs is that they take away from other ship construction. The Navy has a fixed budget and a carrier costs almost an entire year's construction budget (yes, I know that it's spread over multiple years). Thus, one year out of every five, no other ship can be built. I've presented the combat fleet size numbers over the last couple decades and the rate of decline is steady. Carrier costs are killing the surface fleet.

We need around 12 new surface ships per year to maintain a fleet of 300 ships with an average life span of 25 years. We're currently averaging around 8 ships per year. Having one year out of every five where we can build only one ship (the carrier) is making a bad problem worse.

Do you have an alternative or do you want to ride the trend all the way down?

I totally agree with your last paragraph. I don't like the America class with F-35s idea. Nor do I like the LCS or DDG-1000 My idea is a small angle deck, with cats, no thrills carrier with an mission to support ground operations. Same type of mission as America class, but on a proven platform which should should also be more affordable. No air superiority and all that other stuff which the big carrier can do better. Leave the support of lower intensity ground operations to the smaller CVA, so we stop putting so much wear and tear on the big carriers and their air wings. Do you get this? We think the big ones are important enough not to be exhausting them on lower end missions.

Lets say we get the bugs worked out of the Fords, they are still twice the cost of a Nimitz. If these numbers were to maintain the same relationship: in 50 years we'll have a carrier strength of 5 Ford class and even smaller air wings, and I'll be the old guy at the legion hall telling stories about the old navy. We can't keep buying more expensive stuff (even after adjusting for inflation) and then wear it out on rate we have been going, or we will end up with greatly diminished numbers and capabilities.

How about McHales' Navy - a PT boat crew transfers to the Coast Guard to avoid embarrassment, feel wanted, and really do littoral combat operations. Their squadron commander is miraculously cured of his heartburn.

.... cured of his heartburn, until he realizes the Coast Guard expects he will deal with the general public before, not after, shooting them. The movie closes as the commander begs to return to the Navy but is rejected for being "ruined".

When the Chinese government in an overzealous attempt to steal every military secret America has inadvertently copies the designs to an 80’s Clint Eastwood film. The Dirty Harry tuff guy star is forced to come out or retirement !

Traveling to Beijing Clint steals the J-20 prototype, kicks the PLA in the nuts and escapes via the Urals.

When Bobby Lickerty-Split ( Zack Efron ) learns of the loss of his father, deep inside Russian territory. He petitions he fathers best friend and flying buddy “Cueball” McCool ( Morgan Freeman ) to get him out.

Flying the new F35. No radar can see them, no S400 missile can catch them, no force on earth can stop them.

Using super stealth Bobby in his LIGHTNING 2, creeps into Vladimir Putin’s bedroom, steals the keys to the prison cell out of Vlads diguarded trousers using only his arrestor hook, AESA radar and stunning good looks. And frees his father and the world from tyranny.

Young LT. Brubaker is recalled to active duty from her lucrative civilian career as a Instagram Selfie Model to fly missions in year 14 of the Second Iraqi War (or Year 21 of the No Fly Zone, or year 27 of the First Iraqi War - but who's keeping score at this point)

She flys $50mm strike fighters on 10 hour missions to drop multi-million dollar precision weapons on a used electric blue Toyota Hi-Lux with EBay resale value of between $2,100 and $3,499, FOB Khazahstan. This particular Toyota may be driven by members of the Khorasan Group, or may have belonged to Abu Al-Bagdadhi himself, and he only used it on Sundays to drive to and from Mosque. Some say it belonged to the guy who played Whorf on Star Trek:TNG before he got famous. No one knows for sure.

Mostly she misses, since the ROE keeps her above 20k AGL and outside the envelope of any known MANPADs or SAMs.

By the end of the film, the blue Toyota is still in one piece, but the F-18 needs two new engines (sand ingestion) and a center barrel replacement (hours/cycles exceeded).

When confronted with the bad news by the squadron AMDO, CAG faces the camera and utters the famous line from the Michener novel: "Where do we get such funds?"

The bird is cannibalized for parts and is craned off the ship upon return to CONUS and driven to AMARC on the back of a trailer covered in a flapping tarp.

The CVN and shotgun DDG head to NORVA for a major overhaul due to the deferred maintenance overhang from a 10 month deployment to Fifth Fleet coupled with reduced manning and no forward tenders.

Instead of ending credits, a scrolling, itemized list of actual expenses incurred during the engagement is shown.

For the Toyota, spark plugs and gas run to $247.85

Due to the length of the ending credits, no one has stayed in their seats long enough to see how much it cost the USN. No one knows. The record stands at seven hours.

About Me

This blog presents a serious and thoughtful analysis of U.S. Navy matters and is intended to raise the level of discourse available on the Internet. It is based on fact and logic. Topics include fleet composition, equipment, budget, strategy and tactics, and ... well, all naval matters!